a day at Hemel

Well done you two, you must be so pleased with yourselves. :thumbup:

Wow, you both look good. That's great for a few hours on a board.

There may be some things that would help with the knee. It's not a bad idea to have the the bindings set up as they were for the first few lessons. Latter if, and I suspect you will, you decide that just going in one direction most of the time is for you, you can set both bindings facing forward (relatively speaking). This will allow you to scooter more as you would on a scooter, rather than the awkward sideways scootering you were doing. It's also a more comfortable way to ride, if you don't ride fakie often (esp. not having to have your neck cranked to look over you shoulder).

Also it's possible when you get you own equipment, to set it up to minimise stress on your knees. Not many people bother, but it's much better to snowboard with good alignment, just as it is on skis.

Anyway, good for you.

Trencher

Thanks :D

Trencher, I did think of you when they were set up duck foot stance, as you said. It obviously helped everyone figure out which way they wanted to go but I longed for my right foot (which I never had any doubt about) to be set with the toe at more of an angle.

I forgot to say that I quite enjoyed the falling as I could tumble quite happily and easily with no fear and I could get up laughing. A massive thing for me as I have a fear of falling on skis.

Are you making the switch? Glad you enjoyed the day.

Blimey, if its that easy I might give it a try.

Very impressed. Well done!

My daughter (aged 14) learning to snowboard in April.
We booked private lessons for her and her friend, it was really difficult to find group lessons that matched her standard (which will be about 7 hours learning basics on a dry slope)
I hope she makes the switch easily.

caron-a wrote:

I'm now indecisive, I can't wear the knee pad and my Donjoy brace so I really don't know which to go for. The pad is extremely sturdy and I'm leaning towards that at the moment.

Wear the Donjoy - the pads will reduce the brusing but that will get better.
The brace will protect the repaired ligament and have been shown to reduce the risk of repeat injury measurably. Additionally if the knee is still unstable it should reduce the fore-aft movement & reduce the scuffing of the joint cartilage..

I presume it's a short ski style brace that you can wear with a snowboard boot - Donjoy do specific ACL/PCL braces that can be worn with ski/motorcross boots (I'm presumaing snowboard boots are a similar length to ski boots).

Pads can be worn over these - I recall they do make them to fit the brace or you could do a Heath Robinson with kneeling pads.

Yep, I've switched and will be hiring a board in Arabba (I may take my ski boots too, can't be too careful).
Tony, if you're going to give it a go it's so worth doing a day if you're prepared to pay. After about 3 and a half to 4 hours some of the group could've left feeling satisfied, some of the group needed the whole five hours. One of the group didn't get it at all. Dids, she'll do well with seven hours, kids pick up so much quicker too. The youngest in our group (mid 20's I'd guess) was the quickest to learn.

andy, I actually wear my donjoy brace on my left knee with the damaged mcl. I'm not sure it would've made any difference yesterday on my back leg but thanks. My right knee's not hurting at all today so it was just aching from overuse thankfully.

If you look at my right knee in Bandit's picture you can see how much padding I had on :shock:. I didn't particularly like the shorts my friend had lent me, a lot of the padding was unneccesary. I'm more inclined to go for a back/coccyx protector and protective gloves. I tried on a fab pair of Level mitts with inner gloves and wrist protection which I may well be purchasing. I'm handing my Salomon's down to my eldest, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it :D


:thumbup: